Author: irfan-yusuf

Dear Prime Minister, Sky News Australia (at night, at least) and Newscorp columnists. My name is Muslim. I am the leader of the Muslim community. Welcome to this event. Before I start, I want to reassure you all that we Muslims are opposed to all forms of terrorism. We wish to apologise for any terrorism done in the name of Islam. When a Muslim commits terrorism, it is always inspired by Islam. We are so lucky that we do not have mental illness in our community. This is what makes us so moderate. I have had my children undergo...

If you believe much commentary and political rhetoric about young Muslims, you’d think anyone aged 18 to 30 growing up in a Western country and identifying as Muslim shares a common genetic makeup. Even much of the academic stuff on this topic, especially that emerging from the counterterrorism “industry” (recipient of plenty of research grants and media attention) says pretty much the same. There are a few notable exceptions. One of them is UK scholar Dr Sadek Hamid’s 2016 work, Sufis, Salafis and Islamists: The Contested Ground of British Islamic Activism. The title itself displays a nuance arising...

Imagine this scenario. A dangerous enemy is threatening your community with violence. You have the opportunity to infiltrate that enemy, enter its ranks and manipulate it into action in a self-destructive manner. In doing so, you are risking your personal safety. Your cover might be blown. Members of the enemy may be suspicious of each other, but they are likely more suspicious of a newcomer. Or even of an oldcomer behaving differently. This is the story behind Denzel Washington’s latest movie BlacKkKlansman. Washington’s son plays a rooky detective of African American heritage who infiltrates the viciously racist Ku Klux...

I’m in the final year of my PhD. It’s been a long tertiary education road, tempered by less educational pursuits such as practising law and writing a silly memoir. And it all started down the road from my parents’ house at Macquarie University. I wasn’t exactly an activist sort of undergraduate student. I found the earnestness of revolutionary leftwing students rather silly and in many cases hypocritical. How could they support socialism and communism after what these forces did to the Afghans during the 1980’s? Yes, I wasn’t very fond of the United States in many things, but it...

In 1990 I was elected president of my tiny Uni Muslim Students’ Association (MSA). We had no prayer room. Most of our members were Indonesian international students. I could barely understand their accents, nor they mine, making it hard organising activities with them. During Ramadan the other MSA’s with their big prayer halls had organised massive iftar feasts. I contacted one of the Indonesian MSA members. “Listen, guys. We need to put on a big feast. Are you guys ready?” “Brother, I am your sister in faith. I am not a guy,” Siti Aziza replied. “Don’t worry, we have...